American Airlines CEO acknowledges rough few weeks

NEW YORK (AP) - American Airlines' CEO acknowledges that passengers have had a rough few weeks on the airline but says the carrier is working through its issues.

"The operational performance is improving," CEO Tom Horton said in an interview with The Associated Press on Monday. "We'll get past this just like other airlines before us have."

The airline, which has been in bankruptcy protection since November, saw its on-time performance drop to 59 percent in September, according to Flightstats.com. It that same period Delta, Southwest and U.S. Airways were all above 85 percent. The drop is attributed to pilots writing up extra maintenance requests as part of an unsanctioned job action.

The airline has cut flights, and added reserve crews and extra planes to cover any last-minute delays.